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Dog Friendly Acadia National Park: The Ultimate 2026 Guide

May 7, 2026

Dog Friendly Acadia National Park: The Ultimate 2026 Guide

The Complete Guide to Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park

April 14, 2026

The Complete Guide to Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park

Schoodic Peninsula sunset in Acadia National Park Maine - wide panoramic view of orange and lavender sky over the Atlantic Ocean from pink granite ledges, with windswept spruce trees and the silhouette of Mount Desert Island on the horizon, capturing the stunning coastal scenery of the Schoodic District and why the Schoodic Peninsula is one of the most beautiful and least crowded areas of Acadia National Park
15 Best Dog Friendly Hikes at Acadia National Park

March 6, 2026

15 Best Dog Friendly Hikes at Acadia National Park

Three dogs hiking the Little Long Pond trail in Acadia National Park, Maine — a brown mixed breed and two huskies on leash on a sun-dappled wooded path along the turquoise shores of Little Long Pond, highlighting Little Long Pond as a peaceful and dog-friendly walk in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island near Seal Harbor, Maine, perfect for hiking with dogs in Acadia
The Ultimate Winter Guide to the Grand Canyon

February 17, 2026

The Ultimate Winter Guide to the Grand Canyon

6 Best Dog-Friendly National Parks to Visit This Winter

December 23, 2025

6 Best Dog-Friendly National Parks to Visit This Winter

Wildlife Watching in Cades Cove: Your Complete Animal Guide

August 8, 2025

Wildlife Watching in Cades Cove: Your Complete Animal Guide

Paws on the Trail: The Best Dog-Friendly Hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains

May 19, 2025

Paws on the Trail: The Best Dog-Friendly Hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains

Epic Sunrise and Sunset Spots On The Grand Canyons South Rim

August 30, 2022

Epic Sunrise and Sunset Spots On The Grand Canyons South Rim

Epic Sunrise and Sunset Grand Canyon South Rim
5 Things Not To Miss On Your First Visit To The Grand Canyon

July 5, 2022

5 Things Not To Miss On Your First Visit To The Grand Canyon

The First Timers Guide To Grand Canyon National Park
The Eerie Ghost Town In The Smokies

November 2, 2021

The Eerie Ghost Town In The Smokies

The Most Dog Friendly National Parks

October 19, 2021

The Most Dog Friendly National Parks

11 Must See Waterfalls In The Smokies

July 27, 2021

11 Must See Waterfalls In The Smokies

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The best view of Acadia isn’t on Cadillac. It’s 3 The best view of Acadia isn’t on Cadillac. It’s 3 miles offshore, and I’ll stand by that! 

We took the Lighthouse, Wildlife & Acadia National Park Cruise with @barharborwhales last October with visitors in town, and the fog rolled in twenty minutes out. I was thrilled. Coastal Maine doesn’t owe you a clear day. It owes you a mood.

The plan was Egg Rock, Winter Harbor, Baker Island, and Bear Island. The fog had other ideas, so the captain swung us around the quiet side of the island and we got Bass Harbor Head from the water, which almost nobody sees from that angle. I wouldn’t trade it for a clear day! 

Practical bits: about two and a half to three hours, it runs through the fall, and the route changes with the weather, so go in with no expectations and a real jacket. It’s ten degrees colder on the water than on the dock, every time.

🌊🍁 Save this for October 🍁🌊 I hope you get some fog too! 😉
Salem questions, round two. I love being your unof Salem questions, round two. I love being your unofficial tour guide for your October witch era. 🧙‍♀️

Which train should you take? Is 9 a.m. too early? (For Salem in October? Absolutely not.) Where did the witch trials actually happen? Can you go inside the Hocus Pocus house? (Nope. People live there. Please don’t be weird.)

We’re also talking coming in from Danvers, the ferry, what your 10-year-old will love, and whether November is too late for a Salem trip.

I lived in Massachusetts for 7 years and made the October pilgrimage more times than I can count. These are the answers I’d give a friend before sending them off to get aggressively distracted by every witchy gift shop in town. 

And if you want the whole game plan, I’ve got you:

🧹 The Ultimate Salem Guide ($): Week-by-week crowd calendar, parking lots by address, a kids’ itinerary, and what’s changed for 2026.

🎃 The Salem Cheat Sheet ($): The need-to-know details without the 47 open browser tabs.

Comment WITCH and I’ll send you the links. Consider it your official invitation to your 90s-kid, Hocus Pocus-loving witch era. 🖤
POV: You’re standing in the front yard of the man POV: You’re standing in the front yard of the man who gave Acadia to the world, and almost nobody knows it 😍

No circling the Park Loop Road looking for parking. Just old stone steps, the Atlantic, and a piece of Acadia history hiding in plain sight.

At the end you’ll find old stone foundations and steps going down to the rocks. That’s Old Farm, George Dorr’s house. Dorr spent his life and most of his money piecing together the land that became Acadia, then handed it to the country. He died in 1944, and the park took the house down a few years later. The story goes he swam off these rocks every morning well into old age.

So you’re standing in the front yard of the person who’s the reason any of this is public land. There’s no sign making a big deal of it. I think that’s the point.

Dogs on leash are fine. Park in the small lot on Route 3 just outside of Bar Harbor.

Then head back into town for dinner. Table Salt on Main Street if you want to sit down somewhere nice, or the Black Friar if you want a pub, a fire, and a bowl of stew. Both are a few minutes from the trailhead, which is the whole argument for doing Compass Harbor late in the day.

✨🍁✨ Save this one for the day you want Acadia without the Park Loop Road.

Heading to Acadia in the next few weeks? Comment Fall and I’ll send you links to my guide and blog post 🍁✨
If Horseman’s Hollow is on your Sleepy Hollow itin If Horseman’s Hollow is on your Sleepy Hollow itinerary, sit down, we need to talk 🎃👻✨

Sleepy Hollow rebuilt its entire Halloween lineup this year, and most of what’s on the internet about it hasn’t caught up. 

Horseman’s Hollow is gone. Kykuit’s paused. Irving’s ‘Legend’ moved outdoors to Sunnyside. Halloween is a Saturday and so is the parade a week earlier.

I lived in New England for 7 years and drove down almost every October. This is the version I’d hand a friend, checked for 2026: the honest week-by-week crowd calendar, every ticket and the order it sells out, the train and the parking lots, parade night and Halloween night hour by hour, one perfect weekday, and the seven real Legend addresses.

The Sleepy Hollow in October Cheat Sheet ($) is six pages you keep on your phone. The Ultimate Sleepy Hollow Guide ($) is the whole year including itineraries, where to actually sleep (RV included), the dog version, the estates, the real history.

Comment HORSEMAN and I’ll send you both links, plus my blog post One Day In Sleepy Hollow!
📰🗞️ It’s called Newspaper Rock, but there’s no hea 📰🗞️ It’s called Newspaper Rock, but there’s no headline. Just 2,000 years of people adding to the story.

Newspaper Rock, on the road into Canyonlands’ Needles district. Hundreds of figures carved into the desert varnish over roughly 2,000 years. Ancestral Puebloan, Fremont, Navajo, Ute, and people whose names we don’t have. Bighorn, riders on horseback (so some of these are after 1600), six-toed footprints. The Navajo name is Tse’ Hone, “rock that tells a story.”

It’s free. No hike. Most people take the photo and keep driving to the park. Stand there long enough and it stops being a photo op and starts being what it is: 2,000 years of people saying “I was here,” on land that was theirs before it was anyone’s park.

It’s worth remembering that the parks are on their land.

No touching, no chalk, no climbing the fence. 

✨✨Save this for your Utah trip✨✨
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